


chrestomathy

by betony



Series: Miscellanies [3]
Category: 15th Century CE RPF, Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, La Belle et la Bête | Beauty and the Beast (Fairy Tale), Thor (Movies)
Genre: 3 Sentence Fiction, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:48:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 29
Words: 2,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28443447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betony/pseuds/betony
Summary: For the prompt in the 2020 Three Sentence Ficathon:Greek Mythology, Persephone, requests.
Relationships: Aeneas/Cassandra (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Anne Neville Queen of England/Richard III of England, Beast/Beauty (Beauty and the Beast), Eros/Psyche (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore)
Series: Miscellanies [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2084418
Kudos: 7





	1. giver of many gifts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt in the 2020 Three Sentence Ficathon: _Greek Mythology, Persephone, requests_.

“Give me Mother,” she begs those first few terrible nights when the wails of lost souls becomes too much to bear; and the Lord of the Dead can do nothing but offer her the comfort of his own companionship.  
  
“Give me grass,” she asks when the soles of her feet ache from trodding upon the precious stones that litter the Underworld; and the Generous One shakes his head but shods her feet in fine shoes of obsidian and emerald. 

“Give me power,” she demands when she realizes love cannot be the only force to keep her here; and Hades smiles at last as he holds out a pomegranate in one pale hand.


	2. chooser of the slain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _MCU, Natasha & Thor, she's in Valhalla_

It happens like this: a brawl on the edge of space, going badly (as usual), Thor tasting blood in his mouth before looking up towards the horizon in time to catch a glimpse of a woman with red-gold hair and a familiar face perched upon a silver wolf with sharp teeth.

He catches his breath in alarm, but it seems the Norns have not yet measured out his full length of life; she raises her fingers to her lips, a warrior’s salute, and flickers out of sight too soon, too soon. 

And yet—when he turns back to battle, a smile blazes across his face that wasn’t there before.


	3. fortitude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _Greek mythology, Apollo/Hyacinthus, he doesn't know his own strength_

“Stronger,” mumbles Hyacinth, “than you know…” and Apollo’s face, already ashen, pales outright. 

A thousand excuses dart through his mind: _I didn’t mean to, you should have been watching, a stray malicious wind must have thrown my discus off-target…._

But before he can list any of them, or even apologize as he ought to, Hyacinth half-chuckles, half-gasps with one last breath: “Strong enough to _live._ ”


	4. a token of true—

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _greek mythology, cupid/psyche, stars_

Her husband offers to place tribute to her in the night sky, as so many gods have done before him, and always Psyche shakes her head and laughs. _My vanity would be offended at the poor likeness,_ she pleads at times, and _you know I grow tired of gawkers_ , at others, and escapes the fate she dreads time and again.  
  
The gods, she knows all too well, strew those in the stars who they most want to forget; far easier to scatter them between galaxies than bear their memories within their souls.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _Any, Any, waltz_. (Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell)

Jonathan Strange might sneer at convention and court scandal as any other man might his bride, but try as he might, he still falters at the steps of Countess Lieven’s newest affectation. “Really,” he huffs, after his fourth failed attempt, “my time might be better put to use mastering Meraud’s Paradox.”

“Oh, Jonathan,” sighs Arabella, all fond exasperation and not a little disappointment, as she climbs upstairs alone to dream of revels she will not quite recall come morning.


	6. (war) smoke & (broken) mirrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _any, any, lying without lies_

It takes Cassandra time to learn to use her curse, but learn she does: the smile, (cool, cutting), the arch of her eyebrows (sardonic, always), the words she must choose with care. “No one will fault us if we discard Oenone as carelessly as Paris did,” she tells her mother while weaving, and Hecuba frowns and ensures that her first daughter-in-law does not withhold her cures from Troy’s wounded; “Hektor’s name will never be forgotten if he goes out against Achilles today,” she tells her father in passing, and at once Priam calls his firstborn back for fear of disgrace, the angry shouts from the gates forgotten; “The war will surely end soon,” she tells her people when the empty Achaean camps are found, and the ensuing paranoia means they mistrust their new trophy at once. 

Anything can be a weapon--in the right hands.


	7. the lament of ouranos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _any, any, kingmaker, oathbreaker_ (15th Century English History RPF)

The three sons of York would be nothing without him, Neville knows, only a triple eclipse, adrift in the heavens as they mourned father and brother both; England would be nothing without him, Warwick knows, only a rudderless ship, led astray by the whims of a mad king or mindless boy. Were he not the astrolabe that mapped and bounded their ambitions, the firm hand in an iron glove that kept them afloat, all would be lost; he will allow it to be so. 

Only...it is easier, in the end, to think such lofty thoughts, and make such fine promises, than to admit how his courage falters when faced with Ned's expression of utter heartbreak.


	8. one day more

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _Greek Mythology, Aeneas/Cassandra, good morning lover, give me your hand/today begins and it’s all that we have_

“If I may,” Aeneas begins, and she hates, oh how she hates the wariness she hears in his voice, the way this war has made strangers of them, and hates the faint firm hope she hears there even more, “my lady Cassandra? The Achaeans have sailed away from our shores at last and the sun shines upon us again; may I tempt you with a ride to Mount Ida,or a ramble by the sea, for old friendship’s sake if nothing more,?”

She does not have voice or words to ask for all she wants—echoes of laughing children, kisses and embraces in a rain-sodden cave thousand of miles away, his hand warm in hers as they raise a lit torch together to the wooden horse that waits to be discovered on the beach—and satisfies herself, instead, with brushing her cold fingertips against his in refusal.


	9. priorities, priorities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on the prompt: _Any, any, 'anyway, long story short, we're engaged now.'_ (and the alternate beginning of Mulan 2, which can be found on YouTube)

Nearly an hour has passed, and Mulan is _still_ explaining enthusiastically about bandits and battles—Ling would expect this sort of unsentimental drivel from thank-the-Ancestors-no-longer-their-Captain Shang when asked to explain the circumstances behind their unexpected betrothal, but not his friend. Beside him, Yao fidgets, and Chien Po, too soft-hearted to relish detailed renditions of violence, snores faintly.

It’s His Imperial Majesty who finally harrumphs in impatience and wonders how much more prevarication they must endure; Mulan flushes, fumbles, and stammers in that awkward artificial voice they haven’t heard in years, “I—uh—and then we got engaged and survived against all odds the end.”


	10. for i am become an incendiary infidel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _History, any, when the sun shines the world changes_ (Ancient Egyptian History RPF)

“Madness,” Nefertiti whispers into her husband’s shoulder, but already her mind swims with hymns to Aten, offerings in his praise, voices raised in his worship.

“Courage,” Akhenaten corrects with a laugh, always more sure than she that they can defy a thousand years of tradition and win. 

The words settle over her like a sorceror’s curse or a convict’s chains; Amarna is her future, and whatever becomes of Pharaoh and his children, her bones will turn to dust beneath its walls.


	11. lips that would kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _Greek Mythology, Cassandra/Aeneas, but I love the bones of you/that I will never escape_

Lavinium’s newest fashion is to capture in stone those fantastical characters parents and grandparents solemnly describe: Hektor the noble, Andromache the kind, Helen the beautiful, and so on; Aeneas, grown gray-haired and gracious, manages to be kind about most of these imperfect-at-best, insulting-at worst ventures—except this most recent.

The statue’s hair is pinned back neatly behind a veil, as Cassandra’s wild curls never were in life, her eyes empty and expressionless, her mouth set in a patient placid line; he thinks he has never seen anything so grotesque in his life. And yet—he bends to press a kiss to its cold forehead, and does not wonder what it would be to touch warm skin instead.


	12. form prayers to broken stone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _Any, any, inspired by poetry_ (Greek Mythology)

Troy believes in the Palladium, with unsettling passion, and that is something not even its mad princess’s protests that, “It’s no more than a soulless _rock_!” can undo. Cassandra is spitefully, stupidly pleased when her twin—the only other soul in the city with common sense—contrives to have it stolen away into the Acheaen camp, far away from her sight, at least until the nights grow lonely, and the soul of the city withers away without a focus for their faith.

When the wooden horse is wheeled within the gates, all because it makes an appealing alternative to oblivion, she admits defeat; Cassandra locks herself into the temple of Athena and bows her head to the emptiness before her.


	13. the wonders of the heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _any, any, unusual roses_ (Beauty and the Beast, fairy tale)

“They smell,” rumbles her host—she has long since stopped thinking of him as her captor—“of whatever pleases you best;” he sounds half-apologetic, half-ashamed as though this newest oddity is yet another offense, until Beauty laughs in delight. Of course she does; it is pleasant, after all, to walk in the gardens surrounded by the scent of the chocolate her sisters served at their fetes, the coffee the servants brew for her in the morning, the crispness of an unread book. 

Until the day she leans too close to a barely-unfurled bloom, only to recognize the tang of cinnamon and close-cropped fur; her cheeks flush, her stomach turns, and her heart—that fool!—is no longer to be trusted.


	14. the wind howling on the strand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _Any, any, Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand._ (Child Ballads, The Twa Sisters)

When they are young, they chase each other, laughing, the wind tangling in their hair; when they sleep at last upon the bank, their heads rest close together, their hands clasped. 

When they are older, separate retinues maids accompany them, each side frowning suspiciously at the other; every tear of a gown, every untamed curl, is counted and criticized so that the sisters remember, even if their servants do not.

When they are as old as they will ever become, there is only the two of them once more, but their eyes are full of Sweet William and their voices dark with anger; the gale approaching wails a warning into their ears, but they know better than the sea and strand itself that the past is a land long since lost.


	15. a matter of perspective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _Any, any, "once the avalanche has started it is too late for the pebbles to vote"_ (Wars of the Roses RPF)

“...So you see, my dear,” snaps Queen Margaret, “It is of little use for you to lament being caught in events beyond your control. Better women than you have tried to change their fate and failed.”

“No,” replies Anne, voice calm and cold, “but I have seen great men undone by the pebble in their shoe.”


	16. the daughter makes the duck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _anything that's been rebooted, any, meeting your reboot counterpart_ (Darkwing Duck/Ducktales2017, written pre-“Let’s Get Dangerous”)

“This—this charlatan, this _fraud_!” splutters Drake, purple with rage. “So what if he has a Launchpad? I don’t see a Gosalyn anywhere around.”

He looks to his daughter— the light of his life, his most loyal fan—for support, but Gosalyn, as it turns out, is oh-so-helpfully clapping her hands together with delight as she stares up at this imposter Darkwing. “You’re an _actor_? Cool beans!”

“....Oh, phooey,” Drake mutters.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _Any award winner, death by newbery medal*, fix-it_ (Charlotte’s Web)

Charlotte wakes in Mother Arachne’s embrace, as she expects to be; all spiders return in the end to their ancestress, no matter how reluctant they might be.

“Have you left any of your work undone, little sister?” asks Arachne gently, and Charlotte snaps her jaws and does not dare reply, Wilbur’s heartbroken face before her many eyes. 

“Then return until you see your masterpiece complete,” whispers the Weaver, who gave her own life so that no others need see their deeds undone, and opens her hand to let Charlotte go.


	18. a shadow over the grave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _Any, any, "coming events cast their shadows before"_ (Wars of the Roses RPF)

The world grows dark; the sun disappears. Richard’s first responsibility should be to calm the fears of his bondsmen, but instead his mind is full of sudden certainty that Anne—that Anne—

“You’ve gone white, Dickon,” she teases gently, mistaking his terror. “Have you forgotten that it will pass, with time?”

She is right, and it is thoroughly nonsensical to fear things as ordinary as eclipses, and yet the dread lingers; Richard bites back his foolishness and turns away.


	19. a plunge into the deep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _Greek Mythology, Aeneas/Cassandra, just remember, if you're jumping/i would start my jump off running after you_

He knows very well his father regrets that afternoon long past—a liaison, with a woman who turned out to be a goddess, who gave him a son he both could and could not ever fully call his own. Aeneas thinks that is why he has devoted his life to avoiding his father’s mistakes, to acting cautiously and carefully, to leave this world someday without shame; a prince far from home ought to do nothing else while living at his powerful uncle’s mercy.

But: “The water’s lovely!” Cassandra shrieks delightedly from the Scamandar, and much as he knows it’s bound to be unbearably cold at this time of year, he pulls his tunic over his head and jumps in beside her.


	20. a fair, dispassionate gaze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _Greek Mythology, Hades/Persephone, and I see my heart, like a surgeon/can I use my life like a weapon?_

Persephone is lucky to be loved.

She can study the seasons before and tally up which shall be spent above ground and which below; she can smile as flowers bloom and hold her face still as fiends stumble into her kingdom from the world above; she can hold her heart in her hand and measure which portion of it is to be her mother’s and which her husband’s.

Persephone wonders, dispassionately, if she is lucky enough _to_ love.


	21. between the pages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _Harry Potter, Gilderoy Lockhart, Valentine’s Day mayhem_

The Valentine’s Day Fiasco of ‘93 passes down into Hogwarts lore not only for the surly cupids who patrol the halls and the confetti that made much-needed morning coffee inedible, but most of all for how a Spiky Bush had managed to wriggle its way unseen into the castle and on top of Professor Lockhart’s mountain of mail, necessitating that the entire edifice be incinerated. 

“Odd, that,” Professor McGonagall can be heard to remark later from her armchair, adjusting her eyeglasses.

“Very,” grunts Professor Sprout in response.


	22. three truths; one lie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _Greek Mythology, Aeneas/Cassandra, I will love you like there's razors in it/and she'll love you like a radiant flame_

“Anyone would be lucky to be loved by Creusa,” she almost tells Aeneas at the feast celebrating his betrothal, but thinks better of it; it might be true, given her sister’s loving and loyal heart, but there are some words she dares not speak.

“Anyone would be lucky to be loved by you,” she says instead, even as her vision darkens with death and fire, bodies burning and hair, lights snuffed out too soon.

In the privacy of her room, she whispers, “Anyone would be lucky to be loved by me,” and that—oh, the men who will die for her sake!—is a truth even she cannot believe.


	23. twin tides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _Any, any, meeting the theater performance / movie adaptation / meant for children, etc. versions of themselves._ (The Little Mermaid, HCA and Disney)

Even as a daughter of the air, she has no voice, and so she cannot cry out with surprise when she sees this duplicate version of herself dart across the screen. This little mermaid is all red hair and blue eyes ( _had_ her hair ever been so bright, or merely one with the murk and mist of the undertow? After all these years, she can hardly remember); this little mermaid is all insolence and defiance, and a thousand things that ought to add years to a spirit's sentence.

So she ought not to take pride in what she has inspired, and yet--she stands a little taller, and something that might be a soul flares to life at last.


	24. something there (that wasn’t there before)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _any, any, brushing/braiding/putting up someone else's hair_ (Beauty and the Beast, fairy tale)

There are snarls aplenty, and Beauty's hand shakes even as it holds the silver comb; but the Beast never makes any word of complaint, not even when she reaches the worst of the tangles. 

"Thank you," he rumbles, when it is over, and Beauty cannot meet his gaze. Her bags are packed, her horse saddled and waiting, and her heart too full of things left unsaid.


	25. taking flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _any, any, wing AU_ (Greek Mythology)

The wings are--unexpected.

Particularly when Psyche had been clinging to life just a few short hours before, the worst of her curiosity and cravenness proven, feeling nothing so much as a miserable worm, they seem a miracle, every iridescent scale of them, but a miracle she does not entirely deserve.

Her husband clutches her hands, though, and looks earnestly at her, before he explains: "I wanted you to know everything of me, even the flight. _Especially_ the flight." 

Psyche smiles.


	26. HONK!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _MCU, Thor & any, unnamed goose game_

It's a lovely morning in Asgard, and you are a horrible goose. 

Asgard is a city of marvels, indeed, with a thousand sights to see, but none more interesting at the moment than the currently-unarmored shin of Thor Thunderer, open and exposed and oh-so-inviting for a nibble.

"LOKI!" roars your brother, and you honk out a laugh--time to run.


	27. you should be very proud, indeed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _Wonder Woman, Diana, ice cream_

Diana nibbles at cakes, eagerly reaches for baklava, is considered a connoisseur of cannoli—but best of all she loves ice cream. It reminds her of London in 1917, all the wonders of Man’s World waiting to be discovered, of babies and revolving doors and friends worth fighting for.  
  
(It reminds her of snow melting on her tongue as Steve Trevor stares at her, and for that she loves it all the more.)


	28. into the unknown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _Any, any, I've had my adventures, I don't need something new, I'm afraid of what I'm risking if I follow you_ (Greek Mythology)

Helen feels Pharaoh’s eyes following her, wide and _wanting_ , and she can’t help but smile; what are ten more years of war to her, a thousand men’s lives lost? She is Father Zeus’s only mortal daughter, and here is a secret all the world knows: he is kinder by far to his daughters than his sons, and so she can be sure he will bring her through any misadventure unharmed.

But—she thinks of Hermione’s dear, forgotten face and another childhood lost, and it moves her where a thousand tears from Menelaus never could.


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _Greek Mythology, Hephaestus/Aglaea, second chances_

”I am not kind,” he rumbles; “I am not patient,” replies she.

“I am not hopeful,” he grumbles; “Nor are you helpful,” grouses she.

“Yet here I remain,” he mumbles; “And I ever with you,” promises she.


End file.
